Medical Mafia, Ethics & Education
By Hilmy Ahamed –December 1, 2015
Hilmy Ahamed
Sri Lanka has exemplary health indicators and is often referred to as a model for other developing nations. This is due to the yeomen service provided by a number of dedicated health professionals. Yet, Sri Lanka is one of the few countries that a large number of mercenary medical professions and industry are allowed to hold the sick to ransom, despite the Hippocratic oath taken by its doctors.
One would hardly find a doctor who would give evidence against his or her own during times of medical neglect. Today, the medical industry has been commercialized to the extent that they hold the patient and their family’s hostage even after the death of a patient.
Medical conditions become emotionally desperate situations where the immediate family is obliged to provide the best to their sick, and in most cases way beyond what is affordable. This leads to situations where they just cannot afford to settle the final medical bills even to discharge the body after a death. The hospitals do not warn the patient’s family of the estimated costs. Even when they do, it probably is too late as the patient’s condition is far too vulnerable to move them out to an affordable facility. Recently, we received the welcome news of a Colombo court ordering the management of a private hospital to release the body of a deceased immediately to his close relatives, which was reportedly detained for several days until the hospital’s exorbitant bill was settled.
Further, the sky rocketing cost of the doctor’s fees is settled through a “chit” plundering the patient and defrauding the state of its taxes. This has been an accepted practice and the authorities are fully aware of this scam, yet no action has been taken against this unscrupulous practice, fearing incarceration by the industry and the wrath of the medical profession. There are no safeguards through the consumer protection authority or any other state institutions on the health industry due to the fear of trade union action by these shylocks, who want their pound of flesh. Their trade union action or holding patients to ransom is totally against the Hippocratic oath they take and are as hypocritical as their practice. The state should intervene firmly and ensure that the citizens are provided quality private medical facilities at an affordable cost because the majority of them have studied for “FREE” in our state universities and schools.
The health industry has become lucrative global ventures and there is high demand for medical education, which our state universities are unable to cope with. We now see a large number of students who pass the GCE A’ Level examination with above average results and are unable to enter local medical universities. They are leaving to study abroad at exorbitant costs and several other negative outcome. Parents who dream of a medical education for their children use their meager saving and sometimes sell or mortgage their valuable assets to provide this education abroad, eventually to lose them to some foreign nation. Very few countries offer full or partial scholarships for medical education. Sri Lanka Medical Council that has thwarted private medical education locally has no qualms about allowing these foreign graduates to work in Sri Lanka if they pass the Examination for Registration to Practice Medicine (ERPM) formerly know as act 16 examinations.